[THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA.
WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST. ]
The decay of the heron is less perceptible in America. He is not so frequently hunted. The solitudes are of vaster dimensions. He can still find, among his beloved marshes, gloomy and almost impenetrable forests. In these shadowy recesses he is more gregarious: ten or fifteen "domestic exiles" establish themselves in the same locality, or at but a short distance from each other. The complete obscurity which the huge cedars throw over the livid waters re-assures and rejoices them. Towards the summit of these trees they build with sticks a wide platform, which they cover with small branches: this is the residence of the family, and the shelter of their loves; there, the eggs are laid and hatched in quiet, the young are taught to fly, and all those paternal lessons are given which will perfect the young fisher. They have little cause to fear the intrusion of man into their peaceful retreats: these they find near the sea-shore, especially in North and South Carolina, in low swampy levels, the haunt of yellow fever. Such morasses—an ancient arm of the sea or a river, an old swamp left behind in the gradual recession of the waters—extend sometimes over a length of five or six miles, and a breadth of one mile. The entry is not very inviting: a barrier of trees confronts you, their trunks perfectly upright and stripped of branches, fifty or sixty feet high, and bare to the very summit, where they mingle and bring together their leafy arches of sombre green, so as to shed upon the waters an ominous twilight. What waters! A seething mass of leaves and débris, where the old stems rise pell-mell one upon another; the whole of a muddy yellow colour, coated on the surface with a green frothy moss. Advance, and the seemingly firm expanse is a quicksand, into which you plunge. A laurel-tree at each step intercepts you; you cannot pass without a painful struggle with their branches, with wrecks of trees, with laurels constantly springing up afresh. Rare gleams of light shoot athwart the darkness, and the silence of death prevails in these terrible regions. Except the melancholy notes of two or three small birds, which you catch at intervals, or the hoarse cry of the heron, all is dumb and desolate; but when the wind rises, from the summit of the trees comes the heron's moans and sighs. If the storm bursts, these great naked cedars, these tall "ammiral's masts," waver and clash together; the forest roars, cries, groans, and imitates with singular exactness the voices of wolves, and bears, and all the beasts of prey.
It was not then without astonishment that, about 1805, the heron, thus securely settled, saw a rare face, a man's, roaming under their cedars, and in the open swamp. One man alone was capable of visiting them in their haunts, a patient indefatigable traveller, no less courageous than peaceable—the friend and the admirer of birds, Alexander Wilson.
If these people had been acquainted with their visitor's character, far from feeling terrified at his appearance, they would undoubtedly have gone forth to meet him, and, with clapping of wings and loud cries, have given him an amicable salute, a fraternal ovation.
In those terrible years when man waged against man the most destructive war that had ever been known, there lived in Scotland a man of peace. A poor Paisley weaver,[21] in his damp dull lodging, he dreamed of nature, of the infinite liberty of the woods, and, above all, of the winged life. A cripple, and condemned to inactivity, his very bondage inspired him with an ecstatic love of light and flight. If he did not take to himself wings, it was because that sublime gift is, upon earth, only the dream and hope of another world.